Join the Golden Boy at the Marche du Nain Rouge by Andrew McFarlane

The annual Marche du Nain Rouge takes place this Sunday, March 23rd 2025 along the Cass Corridor in Detroit. The festivities begin at 11:30 on the Community Stage at the intersection of Canfield & 2nd with Detroit-centric sets & hilarious entertainment as excitement builds toward the Nain leading the celebratory procession down to the Masonic Temple and the FREE Official Afterparty with drinks, friends, vendor tables, and DJs spinning.

It’s totally free, one of my favorite celebrations in the world, and it takes place just blocks away from me! I have heard some talk that the Marche which was founded in 2010 is a form of “colonizer cosplay”, but I am pretty sure that the colonizers we are cosplaying are the French settlers who brought the “Nain of Normandie” along with them to le Détroit du Lac Érié:

In the mythology of Medieval Normandy, the Nain Rouge (or Lutin, or an earlier version called “Netun”) is a sort of house spirit that has many names, assumes many forms, and plays nefarious pranks. The Lutin of Normandy is very similar to domestic spirits of England, Scandinavia and Germany. They are fond of children, horses (often taking their form), and young maidens also, but are cruel to those who do not treat them with respect. In Archibald Maclaren’s The Fairy Family: A Series of Ballads and Metrical Tales Illustrating the Fairy Mythology of Europe, the Lutin is compared and contrasted with England’s trickster Robin Goodfellow, and found to be quite a bit more mean-spirited, remarking “Many a man laid his ruin at the Lutin’s door; although it must be confessed that in these cases neighbors were uncharitable enough to fay, that the Lutin had less to do with it than habits of Want-of-thrift and Self-indulgence” (Maclaren, 1857, p.67). The subclass of Lutin called the Nain Rouge is described in the folktales of Normandy as playing dastardly tricks on, but on occasion being particularly kind to fisherman.

Read on for a cool Normandy folk tale, check out my pics from the 2017 Marche du Nain Rouge & also the video below.

PS: My friend Joel was there in 2017 as well and he took MUCH better pics that I have featured before.

PPS: I didn’t know the guy in the first pic when I talked to him about the paper mache head he made, but he’s now one of my best friends and we work together. Magic!!

PPPS: The Trinidadian dancers & steel drum band ROCK!!!